My most recent success – Meal Planning

If you are “in charge” of cooking at home, this post might just be what you are looking for.  For years, I have fought the “what should I make for dinner” battle.  I’ve been grocery shopping with ideas for the week in mind, no list, but once I get to cooking, my menu plan (that's just in my head) doesn’t pan out.  Either I forgot ingredients,  I didn’t felt like making “that” after all, or I’m too tired to make “this”.

Then add a picky toddler into the mix, and it’s frustration city!! 

Time, is it just me, or is there nothing such as free time when you have a young child (and maybe older child, I don’t know – not there yet)?

Earlier this year, summer time frame, I had started trying to meal plan.  I failed pretty miserably, but liked one thing I had found while browsing Pinterest.  Forgive me, I don’t recall the source, but it seems like a pretty standard thing in meal planning.  Select categories for certain nights (ex. beef, chicken, pasta, etc.).  And so, I selected 6 different categories:

·         Saturday - Chicken night

·         Sunday - Slow cooker night

·         Monday - Ethnic food night(Greek, Mexican, Asian, etc.)

·         Tuesday – Pasta night

·         Wednesday – Leftovers

·         Thursday – Leftovers

·         Friday - Beef night

I created a little calendar, and had each of the categories as a heading.  I added rows for breakfast, lunch & dinner.  I then made a list of some meals that I knew my family enjoyed, and plugged them in to the calendar and tried it for a week.  Let me say that this failed.  

One, I never meal planned more than dinner.  Two, my list didn’t have any order to it, so I wasn’t super motivated to look through it.  I did it for just a week and felt completely overwhelmed when trying to plan the following week.

Well about a two months ago, I took a page out of my husband’s book and started listening to podcasts on my way home from work (yay Bluetooth).  I thought, maximize your “free’ time,  instead of listening to celebrity trash on the radio… or better yet, the same songs over and over again, because that's just what's on.

I searched for meal planning podcasts.  I thought that this might give me some good ideas, and help me pass the time efficiently.  I listened to probably 10 different podcasts and some of them were absolutely useless to me.  But I did get some ideas from a couple of them, most notably this one: https://frugalfamilyhome.com/podcast/28

This podcasts gives 6 steps on how to meal plan for 1 whole month in 1 hour.  I strongly recommend it, even if I don’t follow the steps to a t.

Here’s what I’ve done so far and I’ve been successful for over a month now and have the rest of this month planned.  I even made it work, when one week I forgot my meal plan at work.  I was so frustrated.

I kept my concept of the 6 different categories I mentioned earlier which I hope you noticed includes leftovers which I actually have planned for 2 days a week.  I even have some weeks where I do 3 nights of leftovers depending on how much leftovers I think there may be or if I choose not to freeze the extras.

Then, I took a whole stack of the recipes I’d torn out of magazines I purchased over the years that were just cluttering up my baker’s rack (two birds, one stone - got rid of a lot of clutter) and I divided them up into categories: chicken, beef, slow cooker, etc.  See where I’m going with this?  I even made a few extra categories for sides, soups & salads, and desserts.  I figure, I might add salads to a night come summertime which goes with one of Shelly’s (from Frugal Family Home blog/podcast), additional tips on how to vary your menu.

My next step, is to pick one recipe from each category and plug them into my calendar (which I will try to link…) and then I keep the recipes clipped together, to the calendar - easy to find.

I then make a grocery list using those recipes.  I don’t know that all grocery stores have apps, or websites where you can make a list online, but mine does (King Soopers) and it’s made it so easy and much quicker.

From there, I look in my pantry & freezer, like suggested by Shelly, and I check off the items I already have, like say chicken broth.  That way, I’m not adding to my already overflowing pantry and I’m saving money.   

I started doing just 1 week at a time, because I was still organizing my recipes into categories, but I wanted to get going.  The first three weeks I did on a weekly basis, and then I created a meal plan for all of November minus the first 3 days.

I’ll share my meal plans, and recipes if the interest is there.  Most of these recipes aren’t my own, so hopefully I can figure out the source (it’s gotta be on those ripped magazine pages right?) J

In summary:

·         Create categories that work for your family (note I don’t like fish – no fish night).

·         Categorize your recipes (include your family favorites if you have some).

·         Select one recipe per category and plug into your calendar.

·         Keep your recipes together with your calendar.

·         Create your grocery list.

·         Cross off items you already have in the pantry/freezer

·         Don’t get discouraged.  It may take some time to get going, and won't take 1 hour the first time.  I still takes me more than an hour... I've only been doing this a couple months.

I was so frustrated on week 2 when I forgot my meal plan at work (I've been doing my meal planning during my lunch breaks).  Later that night, I thought to myself, well what can I do instead, since all my recipes are at work. 

·         I can make one of the dishes I made this week, because my husband really liked it and Sami liked certain components of it.

·         I can make mac & cheese from scratch because I know how to do that by heart.

·         I can use a freezer meal I have (leftovers from a slow cooker recipe).

·         We’re having friends over for steak, so I would have had to swap out my beef recipe anyway.

Another thing I learned, is not to be too tied down to say Saturday being chicken night.  I’d planned for a certain chicken dish for Saturday and then remembered we had plans to go out.  So I made Sunday be chicken night, and prepped the slow cooker meal that same night so that my husband could dump everything in on Monday morning.  Another tip I didn't mention that I heard in a blog, again I apologize, I don't remember the source - plan around your week... if your kids have soccer on Tuesday, don't plan a meal that takes 1 hour to prep. 

I hope these tips are helpful, and I look forward to sharing if my meal planning continues to work.  Perhaps it will, perhaps it won't.  Time will tell...